The Comfort of Touch
by sheriffandsteel
Summary: Sometimes a human touch brought more comfort than any words ever could.


Daryl eased open the door to the house in silence which was how they did everything these days, silently. Maggie followed after him without a word, hunting knife clutched in a white knuckled hand. It took them only minutes to determine whether the two story house was clear of both the living and the dead. Maggie still felt foolish when she went to her knees to check underneath beds but after the story Rick told them they could not afford to take any chances. But knowing that didn't stop it from bringing forth memories of her checking under Beth's bed for monsters all those years ago.

As always the memory of her sister left her breathless. Maggie used the wooden bedpost to pull herself off of the floor. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she sank down onto the mattress, head falling into her hands.

The memory of Beth stung her like an open wound, a sore that she knew would never quite heal. Every time she managed to quiet her memories long enough for her to fall asleep it was never long before the memory of her baby sister's last screams were ringing in her ears. Maggie didn't know which dreams were worse, the ones of Beth or the ones of Glenn.

She had thought she was becoming a bit of an expert on loss, on grief. Maggie had only been six years old when she lost her mother, some of her earliest memories were of wearing a black cotton dress as she dropped a handful of dirt onto her mother's grave with her father's muffled cries echoing in her ears. In the early days of the turn she lost her step mother and brother, both of whom had long since lost the step part of their title. She lost them again when she realized that her father had been wrong, that no one could be cured. Maggie lost Otis and Patrica, the couple she had known so long she did not have a memory without them in it. She lost Lori by her own hand, lost her father in front of her own eyes. Maggie had thought she knew what pain felt like.

But the day she lost her sister and her husband within seconds of each other she realized just how wrong she had been.

Maggie had never felt pain before.

Not like this.

They were headed to Washington, all reunited in the back of a rusted pickup truck. They had been on the road a few weeks, back to their mission now that Beth had managed to find them. Maggie could still remember how happy they had all been as they sat and laughed in the truck bed, wind wiping at their hair and clothes. Beth was laughing across from her with Daryl's arm wound tight around her shoulders(Maggie had still felt a thrill of happiness at the sight of them together) and Glenn was whispering in Maggie's ear words so unimportant she couldn't even remember them now. She had turned to kiss him, pointedly ignoring Carl's groan of feigned disgust when the truck suddenly slammed into something.

Their faces had bumped together and Maggie pulled away with a jolt, hand already drawing her gun. They had just made their way around a corner and the truck had slammed into the first stragglers of the largest herd of walkers Maggie had ever seen. The truck had popped a tire and Abraham jumped out of the front seat, knife swinging as he yelled at them all to run.

Fear gripped her as Maggie stumbled from the truck where she waited until Beth and Glenn were beside her on the cracked asphalt. She fired a shot at a walker that was far to close for comfort before she followed after the others down the road the way they had come heart hammering in her chest.

"Head into the woods!" Rick called over his shoulder as he clutched Judith tighter to his chest. "We'll meet in the closet town to the east!"

Everyone obeyed wordlessly but Maggie saw from the corner of her eye that they went in pairs. No one was willing to split up if they didn't have to, not after last time. But they all knew they would be faster if broken up and splitting up would confuse the herd so they all followed Rick's instructions.

She grabbed Glenn and Beth's hands before sprinting to the cover of the treeline, shouting to be heard over the gunshots ringing out from behind them. "I'm not losing you again!" Beth had her hand wound with Daryl's and as they made their way through the trees they let go of each other so they could all fight freely.

The underbrush snagged and snapped at their clothing, their feet tangled in the overgrown floor of the forest as they breathlessly headed away from the herd. After a while Maggie began to let herself think that they were safe, that they would be able to survive this after all, but then they skidded out into a clearing that wasn't very clear at all.

Maggie stumbled as she came to an abrupt halt, Glenn catching her arm to keep her upright. As one they all seemed to realize that they couldn't outrun both groups of walkers at once so they planted their feet to quickly take this one down. As they fell walker after walker Maggie let herself believe that they could still get out of this unhurt but then her gun ran out of bullets. She slammed the empty Colt into the rotted skull of the walker before her no longer flinching as the blood splattered her face. She couldn't see the others among the corpses but she could hear the unmistakable sounds of their fighting.

As she fell another walker Maggie found the area around her clear and she moved to help Beth where she battled against two walkers, both reaching their decomposed hands for her. Daryl and Glenn were both fighting off walkers of their own so Maggie moved to rush across the clearing when the herd from the road suddenly caught up to them. Maggie hadn't even taken a step before a walker was clutching Beth by the shoulders, all to similar to the way she often saw Daryl holding her sister, before bending down to bite the nape of her shoulder and throat.

Maggie and Beth screamed at the same time and honestly she could not remember whose scream held more pain. Daryl yelled Beth's name a second later as he looked over to see her going down with three walkers on top of her. Maggie moved to rush forward, unwilling to let her baby sister end in such a way but then Glenn was in front of her pushing her back with tears bright in his eyes.

"We have to go Maggie." he choked out, grabbing Daryl as he made to rush to Beth's still screaming form. "Go!"

Wishing she still had a bullet to end her sister's pain Maggie turned with a gut-wrenching sob, grabbing Daryl's other arm to keep him with her. She knew if she didn't he would rush to Beth and that would only grant him the same fate. The three stumbled blindly out of the clearing before Glenn let out a sharp cry and was tugged to a stop.

One of the walkers they had assumed was put down had only been knocked over. The pile of other walkers laying on top of it had prevented it from raising and coming after them again but now it had a hold of Glenn's leg and before any of them could move it managed to bite a chuck out of his flesh in a way far to similar to her father's wound.

Maggie screamed his name as Glenn cried out and it was not lost to her in that moment that Beth's cries had stopped. The walkers eating her corpse(Maggie had to physically force herself not to look over at her sister's remains) lifted their blood soaked faces to fix them once more in their sights.

Daryl stomped on the walker who bit Glenn, its head bursting like a melon beneath his boot. They both wrapped an arm tight around his waist and pulled him away, casting furtive looks at the walkers closely approaching behind them.

"You're gonna be fine. We'll amputate in just a second." Maggie promised, her throat tight as they tried to maneuver Glenn quickly through the underbrush.

"No. No Maggie." Glenn suddenly was pushing at her, shoving both of them away from him. He planted his feet and looked at her and Daryl with firm eyes, his own pain already shoved to the back of his mind. Maggie shook her head, knowing what he was about to say before he even opened his mouth.

"Its to late for me. You have to run."

"No." Maggie managed to gasp out, reaching to pull Glenn to her. He let her, bending to press a feverish kiss to her lips before shoving her away.

"I love you." he whispered, a tear leaking from his eyes as he looked at them both. "Now _run._"

He turned from them then, his knife already swinging at the closet walker. Maggie screamed his name before Daryl grabbed her arm and tugged her away from the grizzly sight of the walkers converging on her husband.

But they did as Glenn told them and they ran blindly away from the clearing. His screams seemed to echo in her ears until they stumbled from the woods hours later.

They had gone to the west when they had left the road and gotten lost in the woods in their departure after. They were no where near the closet town to the east but Daryl was able to track out a path on a torn map they found in an broken down car. But both of them were to blinded by grief to do anything after that so that first night they simply hunkered down in a gas station both pointedly ignoring the others sobs as the pain ripped them both in two.

But they knew that they had to keep going, that Beth and Glenn would want them to keep going, so in the morning they rose and they began to make a wide circle to find the others.

They had gone further than they had realized and they lost a whole day when they had to hide from the remains of the herd as it shambled past them. Neither of them spoke for what was there left to say? Working on finding the others just became another thing they needed to do to survive.

As dusk of the fourth day approached Daryl had beckoned for her to follow him into the last house on the street so that they would not try to close the last bit of distance in the dark. One more night of waiting wasn't going to hurt either of them. Maggie assumed they would reach the town in the next day and part of her wondered if the others would even still be there. If they had made it there at all.

So here she was, sitting in the dark of a likely dead stranger's bedroom as she tried to choke back tears. Maggie knew that she ought to go down to the kitchen of the house and see what food she could scrounge up(neither her nor Daryl had been very good at keeping themselves fed these past few days) but she found she could not move. Sniffling Maggie reached for the pillow sitting at the head of the bed and pulled it onto her lap. She clutched it tightly to her chest as her grief for her sister and her husband consumed her. She tried as best as she could to muffle her sobs into the pillow but it was still only minutes before a shadow fell over her curled up form.

Maggie looked up to see Daryl standing awkwardly in the doorway as he looked down at her. She sat up and brushed the tears off of her face but she did not feel embarrassed for him to have caught her sobbing. They had seen each other crying so much in the past few days that it no longer caused either of them to bat an eyelid.

Daryl shuffled into the room, placing his crossbow on top of the cluttered dresser before he walked slowly to the bed as if he was waiting for her to tell him to go away. Maggie sniffed again as she scooted over to allow him room to sit down beside her. She stared down at her dirty hands as the mattress sank down with his weight. For a long moment they simply sat in silence, as close as they had come to acknowledging their mutual grief since it had happened.

Maggie took a deep breath as she ran her hands over her face. "I keep expecting them to walk in." she admitted in a whisper, her voice hoarse from both the lack of use and her tears. She shook her head as the words, now that they had been allowed out, kept spilling forward. "Keep expectin' to hear Bethy singing or Glenn's laugh." she shook her head again as the tears sprang back to her eyes. "We'll never hear them again."

Daryl said nothing and for a moment she worried that her speaking would only cause him to retreat further into himself when he slowly rose his arm to place around her shoulders. His arm was stiff and awkward as he held her but Maggie didn't care. After so many days of nothing but her pain it felt good to feel the comfort of a human touch again. She turned into his chest with a sob and his other arm wrapped around her as she felt his tears drip down onto the bare skin of her neck.

Maggie did not know how long they had sat and cried together before she finally fell asleep but when she woke the room was pitch black due to the night's lack of a moon. She shivered at the late autumn chill and scooted closer to the warm heat beside her. She opened her eyes with a soft smile certain she would be able to make out Glenn's features even in the dark. It hit her like a punch to the gut as she made out the shadows of Daryl's face in the darkness and the memories rushed over her again.

She shoved herself up into a sitting position as she heaved in breaths. She did not want to cry again, her eyes and throat were already raw from sobbing.

Daryl awoke by the sounds of her near hyperventilating and she heard the bed creak as he sat up behind her. He didn't say a word as he placed his hand between her shoulder blades and Maggie bit her lip at his touch. It was not the touch she craved but she still found herself leaning into it. Drawn to the warmth of his flesh and wishing for something, anything, to pull her mind from grief Maggie turned around to face him. She leaned over and pressed her mouth to his before she could think the action through.

She felt Daryl suck in a breath and she pulled back with a gasp of her own. Her frantic apology died on her lips as he reached up to grab her face, pulling her back to him roughly.

Maggie knew this should feel wrong, that she was only recently widowed and this was her dead sister's boyfriend but none of that mattered to her at the moment. She would deal with her guilt and her pain later because right now all she wanted was to feel alive again. To feel something other than her mind numbing grief.

Using Daryl's shoulders for leverage she pulled herself up into his lap, her thighs straddling his hips as he wound his hands behind her back. His hair was long under her fingers so different from Glenn's short silky strands. Their mouths clashed furiously against each other, more teeth than tongue as they were both so accustomed to kissing a different person. Daryl's hands were of a rougher callus than Glenn's as he shoved her sweater off over her head and it took him longer than it would have taken Glenn to find the sweet spot on her neck.

Maggie shoved his vest and shirt off of his shoulders with a gasp, biting back surprise at the risen scars under her fingers. Beth had told her Daryl had had a troubled youth but she had not been expecting that. Her mind was wiped blank as Daryl struggled open the clasp of her bra, his hands immediately raising up to cup her breasts. His hand rolled one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger and she gasped as he took her other breast in his mouth rolling his tongue in much the same fashion. The darkness filling the room made it easier for her to imagine that it was Glenn who was holding her, that it was Glenn who was making the nerves in her body feel electrified again.

Daryl suddenly shoved her off of him and onto her back on the bed. Maggie felt a blush forming as Daryl peered through the dark down at her. Even in the darkness she could see the conflict plain on his face. She swallowed hard at the troubled look covering his features. Maggie did not want him to stop, his touch was the first thing that made her feel alive in days. Daryl's face settled back into his normal stoic expression before he leaned down. Maggie gasped as his weight settled down on top of her, their mouths colliding again as though they would be able to find a balm to the pain in each other's saliva.

His hands traveled down her legs to unzip her boots and she heard two thuds as he toed off his own. Maggie sat up to pull off her other boot and sock wanting to hurry the process along. She needed to be as close to him as possible in that moment. She needed him to make her feel alive again.

Maggie popped open the button on his jeans with one hand as she trailed kisses down his chest. She was only slightly surprised to find that he went commando. Daryl groaned, a sound that was startling unfamiliar to her ears before he began to furiously tug her own pants off of her legs. In his rush he pulled the thin cotton of her panties down as well and Maggie was unable to bite back a startled cry as he pressed his mouth to her inner thigh.

She kicked her pants off to land on the heaping pile of their clothing as Daryl kissed his way up her torso, taking extra time on her breasts. She moaned and reached between them to grip his dick firmly in her hand causing him to tense on top of her. She had only moved her hand slightly before Daryl grabbed her wrist and shoved her hand away before gripping her hips so fiercely she knew that she would have bruises.

But Maggie didn't care because as Daryl slipped inside of her she could _feel_ again. She felt something other than heart wrenching pain as he gripped her wrists with one hand and pinned them above her head. He moved inside of her roughly, far faster and harsher than anything she was used to and Maggie knew that was because this was not the love making her and Glenn did, this was fucking. Maggie wound her legs tight around Daryl's ass he pounded into her, his hipbones sure to leave a string of bruises on her inner thighs.

His breath was hot and fast in her ear and Maggie could have sworn that at one point he whispered Beth's name. She didn't mind. Her own eyes were shut tight as she let him thrust into her, trying to imagine it was Glenn who held her in such a bruising grip. She wriggled her hips beneath him and pulled her wrists from his clutches. Daryl moved his hand to grip her hip to hold her still on the bed and Maggie's hands clung to his shoulders as a familiar building sensation took over her.

The feeling alarmed her. She wasn't ready for this to end to go back to wallowing in her pain. Maggie placed her hands firmly on either side of Daryl's chest and managed to somehow roll them both over. They nearly rolled off of the bed but Daryl just managed to stop their momentum. Maggie was straddling him again and Daryl sat up beneath her as she began to ride him.

His hands gripped her hips again and he used his leverage to pull her down as she rose. Her nails dug deep into the skin of his back and Maggie knew he would have cuts to show for it in the morning. But the morning did not matter. What mattered was the thrill of heat caused by his touch, the sound of her heartbeat in her ears as they thrust against each other.

The change of position only allowed them to hold out for a little while longer and soon Maggie was gasping as her whole body tightened then unclenched. That time she clearly heard it when Daryl whispered her sister's name. Her head fell against his shoulder for a moment as she wished futilely for Glenn and the soft kisses he always peppered her throat with after they had sex. Knowing that no matter how much she imagined otherwise the man she was straddling was not Glenn she carefully moved off of him, twisting over onto her back on the mattress. Daryl flopped down next to her and they struggled for breath in the darkness.

As they lay next to each other on the worn cotton sheets of the bed Maggie knew she ought to feel guilty. But as the sound of their ragged breathing filled her ears all she could feel was alive. Sometimes a human touch brought more comfort than any words ever could.


End file.
